Penny Marshall

It’s a Big night! That is, Penny Marshall, the director of Big (as well as A League of Their Own and, somehow, the Oliver Sacks adaptation Awakenings) is throwing herself a book party. The onetime Laverne is to fête her memoir, My Mother Was Nuts, on the Upper East Side, with well-heeled attendees who must really love their Nick at Nite: Barry and Diane! David Geffen! Ron Perelman! Fun fact gleaned from the Internet: one of Ms. Marshall’s first gigs was as the “before” to Farrah Fawcett’s “after” in a shampoo commercial. Ask her all about that tonight, once the subject of her mother is exhausted!

Upper East Side, invitation only.

It is well known that billionaire Ronald Perelman—whose elusive ties to the Chabad-Lubavitch community are as speculated upon as his relationship to his luscious ex-wife, Ellen Barkin—owns two back-to-back Upper East Side townhouses: One, where he lives, faces 62nd Street; the other, facing 63rd Street, is used as his office. Less known is the fact that Mr. Perelman has built a private synagogue, a modest, one-room brick structure, in a garden space between the two buildings.

Mr. Perelman, who keeps a Kosher home, likes to be equipped and ready for prayer at all times. "He takes nine Jewish men with him wherever he goes, the French Riviera or East Hampton," said a source. (Mr. Perelman graciously puts members of the New York Chabad community in a nearby hotel on Friday evenings so they won't have to violate the Sabbath by taking the subway in from Crown Heights.)

Mr. Perelman does all of this even though he's two blocks away from the Fifth Avenue Synagogue—called a "who's who of world Jewry" by congregation member and author Herman Wouk. That congregation's other members include billionaire Ira Rennert, Nobel Peace Prizer Elie Wiesel, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (when he is in town).

While Mr. Perelman's is the newest of the private synagogues on New York's Upper East Side, he's not alone! The Edmond Safra Synagogue, spectacularly designed by celebrity architect Thierry Despont, opened its doors on 63rd Street in 2003, having been envisioned as a specifically Sephardic refuge by the late Syrian billionaire mysteriously murdered in his Monaco estate in 1999 and completed under the guidance of his socialite widow, Lily Safra.

Further east, between Lexington and Third avenues, the old-guard Park East Synagogue welcomes non-Jewish guests such as Pope Benedict XVI along with Mayor Koch. "We're celebrating our 120th birthday this year!" Rabbi Arthur Schneier told the Transom eagerly, "One hundred twenty years young! And a few weeks ago, Bono came to services here."

And the star-studded, Reform Temple Emanu-El at 65th Street on Fifth Avenue boasts congregation members Mayor Bloomberg and former governor Eliot Spitzer; business bigwigs Leon Black, Irving and Herbert Lehman and Alan "Ace" Greenberg; and comedian Joan Rivers.

"It wasn't personal," Yehuda Ceitlin, a journalist and occasional member of Mr. Perelman's posse, said of the billionaire's private worship. "He just wanted the opportunity to daven in his own home."

"Synagogues are much a part of his life," added Lubavitch Rabbi Abraham Shemtow, a friend and spiritual leader of the cigar-smoking tycoon. "He wanted to have one right in his quarters; it is a personal and private place of worship. Members of the minyan know ahead of time if the services are going to take place according to schedule; like this weekend they are not happening because he will be in Florida."

cmalle@observer.com

Mr. McCartney, wearing a lightweight European aristo scarf indoors, was accompanied by his lady friend, M.T.A. board member Nancy Shevell, who has been publicly scolded lately for skipping budget meetings while cavorting across the pond in England with her new beau.

“Together now!” a scrum of photographers yelped at the pair. Ms. Shevell gave Mr. McCartney a pouty look, but then scurried up next to him anyway, posing for photos in her violet minidress and curious, sparkle-covered nude leggings, which seemed to recall the singer Britney Spears’ outfit at the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards.

“We recycle, I drive a hybrid, and we’re vegetarian, which the United Nations recently said is the single most effective thing an individual can do because of cattle-rearing and its effects on the environment,” opined Mr. McCartney. “I’ve been a vegetarian for 35 years,” he added, “and I’m now only 37!” (He’s actually 66.)

Around the room, other guests were discussing their own minor contributions to the environmental movement, too. “Our daughter has us using recycled toilet paper!” the Daily Transom overheard one man exclaim to his dinner companion.

A number of powerful moguls attended, including financier Ron Perelman, former Viacom president Tom Freston, IAC chairman Barry Diller and IMG honcho Ted Forstmann—the latter two, accompanied by Diane von Furstenberg and Padma Lakshmi, respectively. Also present were several SNL cast members invited by their boss, Lorne Michaels, who bought a table that evening. (30 Rock star Alec Baldwin served as emcee for the event.)

“We fell asleep, rolled out of bed and rolled into here,” said comedian Fred Armisen, with Mad Men actress Elizabeth Moss on his arm.

“We’re going to L.A. soon and we’re going to get our little hybrid cars—that’s our big move,” Ms. Moss told the Daily Transom. “But,” she added, turning to Mr. Armisen, “we’re pretty good, right?”

“Yeah,” he chimed in, “and we’re pretty recycle-y.”

Do they wish they were greener? “I always buy new clothes and then I throw them away, so I’d like to start reusing them,” joked Mr. Armisen. “I never do the laundry. Really expensive suits—right in the garbage!”

Nearby, fellow SNL standout Seth Meyers was making his way inside. “My boss invited me,” he told the Daily Transom. Invited or told? “No, he asks me. He’s powerful enough to know that asking will do the trick.”

Mr. Meyers said his carbon footprint has been relatively small. “I don’t have a driver’s license right now so I can’t burn any gas, and anytime I turn on my air conditioner, it blows the fuse,” he noted. “My prewar apartment building has very strong feelings about being green.”

What else can he do to help? “I am only going to have sex with the light off!” Mr. Meyers pledged.

Ms. McCartney, the evening’s honoree, teetered in right before the dinner began in a royal blue, sheer-topped dress. The Transom wondered what, if anything, is most frustrating for the eco-conscious designer.

“The meat industry!” she replied. “It’s responsible for all the carbon emissions during its worldwide transport.”

Ms. McCartney’s father suddenly dashed toward her holding up his cellular phone like a tape recorder to mock the reporters lining up to speak with her.

“But, what do you think about the environment?” demanded Mr. McCartney in a silly Irish accent.

“No more questions, no more questions!” she shrieked at him to play along. After which, father and daughter posed together for photos and retreated inside.

Apparently Mr. Perelman's sale of his Ultima III, was not due to financial distress. Mr. Perelman, it seems, is doing just fine! In fact, he is upgrading.

"Ronald is selling the Ultima III because he just got delivery of a new boat that has been under construction in Europe for the past few years. A lot of people know he's got a new boat--it's not that big a secret," said a source close to Mr. Perelman told the Daily Transom. "He's selling the Ultima III because he doesn't need two."

According to this source, who asked not to be identified, Mr. Perelman's new toy will make its debut in May at the Cannes Film Festival, where Mr. Perelman typically hosts a cocktail party aboard his yacht. (Last year's gathering was attended by Christian Slater, Tamara Mellon, Brett Ratner, Harvey Weinstein, Denise Rich, and Zac Posen.)

Bring on the Cristal.

But just as some of the most richest men in the world are ditching their sea toys, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is still hanging on to his $200 million, 414-foot yacht Octopus, where George Soros reportedly just celebrated New Year's "with two young brunettes." The yacht, which houses a crew of 60, two helicopters, seven boats, a submarine, and a remote controlled vehicle that crawls the ocean floor, costs the billionaire $20 million a year (or $384,000 a week) to keep up. And yet, in today's New York Social Diary, David Patrick Columbia doesn't seem to address the mindblowing cost of upkeep of the yacht as much as he does the yacht's supposed illegal disposal of garbage. In fact, the post is written to apologize to Mr. Allen for suggesting that his luxurious yacht may not have a proper garbage-disposal system: 

Spending $384,000 per week on yacht upkeep, however, does.

Out in Los Angeles, Steven Spielberg, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Samuel L. Jackson, Sharon Stone, Bradley Whitford, Tom Hanks, Jamie Lee Curtis, Magic Johnson, Robert Zemeckis, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Berry Gordy and director-producer Reginald Hudlin have all pitched in. From New York, we have Cynthia Brill and Patricia Duff, who each gave $25,000. Ms. Duff's ex, Ron Perelman, gave $50,000, as did Def Jam executive Antonio Reid, Laurance  Rockefeller Jr. and his wife, Wendy, Citigroup's Ray McGuire, Sally Minard, Howard Milstein (two family members also donated the maximum amount), and five people with the last name Soros (including, of course, George).

Contributors will receive tickets to the ceremony and, more important, access to official balls and events. Whether the $500 folk will be attending the same parties as the $50,000 crowd is unclear, but it seems, shall we say, unlikely. 

In mid-October, about three weeks to go before election night, Barack Obama found himself in the classy old Metropolitan Club on 66th Street with a group of his top New York fund-raisers.

He told them there was “extraordinary expertise” in the room. “Who knows?” he said. “There might be some of you who decide that you want to spend a little time in government.”

Perhaps. But there’s something better: The New Yorkers who had the prescience and stamina to support Mr. Obama when Hillary Clinton was the dominant Democrat now carry Barack Platinum Cards; if he wins on Nov. 4, their credit limit will be high. Their advice will be absorbed, their appointments considered, their dreams drafted. And the ones who can see themselves in the cabinet will be taken seriously.

The old F.O.B.’s were Friends of Bill; the new F.O.B.’s are Friendsters of Barack, maybe not that close, but they got in before the going was good. And if there’s one thing we have learned about Team Obama, it’s this: They remember who was there.

Timothy Geithner – Mr. Fed

Since 2003, Timothy Geithner has served as president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. A native New Yorker, the 47-year-old attended Dartmouth College and got his masters at Johns Hopkins University. He speaks some Japanese and Chinese, and has lived in East Africa, India, Thailand, China, and Japan. He can handle a move to D.C., a town he knows well: He worked as under secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 1998 to 2001 under Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers and put in some time at Henry Kissinger’s firm before that. His résumé, and his apparent popularity, has made him one of the most buzzed-about candidates for a major government job like Treasury Secretary.

—Jason Horowitz

Hillary Clinton – Mistress of the Senate

It’s funny to think of Hillary Clinton as a political beneficiary of an Obama presidency, given the extraordinary efforts she exerted during the primaries to prevent it. But the 60-year-old junior senator from New York may very well be the key, or the roadblock, to a successful Obama administration. Freed from presidential ambitions and their incumbent political calibrations, and aggrandized by a national campaign that fell just short but earned her a national base and near-universal respect, Mrs. Clinton is poised to become a giant in the Senate. If she opposes major components of Mr. Obama’s legislative agenda on big issues like, say health care, the Democratic president is in for a very rocky four years. If she rallies support to push his agenda through, like Ted Kennedy did once upon a time for her husband, it will be as a partner. If she plays her cards right—and she will—she’ll be more powerful than ever.

—J.H.

Orin Kramer – The Super Bundler

It’s not clear whether Orin Kramer would want to serve in an Obama administration, or even what position would be available to him if he did. But what is certain is that Mr. Kramer, a financier at Boston Provident, former aide in Jimmy Carter’s administration and perhaps the most influential bundler in Mr. Obama’s corner, comes out of the election with a lot more influence in New York fund-raising circles than he had going in. His decision to go with the Illinois Senator early on—when the entire New York fund-raising establishment was racing to get a good seat behind Hillary Clinton—conveyed seriousness to the city’s donors. And while the 63-year-old has talked in the past about how the legions of small donors have made him and his ilk political “dinosaurs,” the fact is that his endorsement brought a lot of money and credibility to Mr. Obama. As a result, he has gained the candidate’s ear and the envy of his Clinton-backing friends.

—J.H.

Jeh Johnson – The Paul, Weiss Guy

At 51, Jeh Johnson, a litigation partner at Paul, Weiss in New York, is relatively young to have been a Democratic power player for so many years. President Clinton appointed him as general counsel to the Air Force in 1998, and in 2004 he served as an adviser to the Kerry campaign. In his early career he was a federal prosecutor in Manhattan handling public corruption cases. Johnson was a very early backer of Mr. Obama, whom he met in 2006. As he told The New York Times, Mr. Obama called him in November of that year to say he was thinking of running for president, and asked him to hold off committing to any candidate until he had made up his mind. Mr. Johnson said, “‘Barack, I’m with you.’” As the first black partner at his firm, Johnson can also relate to Mr. Obama’s race-straddling career path. Today, Johnson sits on the campaign’s national finance committee and advises the senator on national security and foreign policy issues.

—Jesse Wegman

Caroline Kennedy – The Crucial Boost

Comparisons between Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy had been made before January 27, 2008, but never with quite so much authority. That’s the day that Caroline Kennedy, the former president’s daughter and his last surviving child, published an Op-Ed piece in The New York Times called “A President Like My Father,” in which she wrote, “I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.” If Mr. Obama does get to the White House, he may just bring Ms. Kennedy, 49, with him. A resident of the Upper East Side, she was one of three people who made up the Obama campaign’s vice-presidential search committee, and her name is surfacing in talks among New York’s Democratic insiders for potential jobs in an Obama administration. Her fund-raising and involvement with the New York Department of Education has even led some to mention her as a potential Secretary of Education, though that’s a long shot.

—J.H.

Chris Rock – The New Sinatra

In late September, when Chris Rock made the talk show rounds, it was ostensibly in support of his HBO comedy special, Shoot the Messenger. But in interview after interview, laughs came second; Mr. Rock spent each appearance hammering home one message: Vote for Barack Obama. “I hope Obama wins because the country needs it. The country needs a change,” Mr. Rock told Larry King. And here’s Mr. Rock introducing Senator Obama at a fund-raiser in Harlem a year ago: “It’s nice to see progressive people that are not scared, that want to be on the right side of history,” he said then. “Cuz you’d be real embarrassed if he won and you wasn’t down with it. ‘Ah, man, I can’t call him now. I had that white lady, what was I thinking. What was I thinking?’” High marks, Mr. Rock.

—Hillary Frey

Craig Newmark – The Tech Democrat

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark likes to call himself a “community organizer.” But besides being Craiglist’s official “customer service representative,” the New Jersey-born 55-year-old has taken on another role, as Barack Obama’s “official technology surrogate.” During a meeting at The Observer’s offices recently, Mr. Newmark said that anyone who cares about the Internet knows that Mr. Obama is their candidate. Although the Obama campaign will not comment on who is officially and not officially advising the candidate on tech issues, some of the names include Julius Genachowski, Mr. Obama’s Harvard Law classmate and a former member of Barry Diller’s Office of the Chairman at IAC/InterActiveCorp; Judith Estrin, former chief technology officer of Cisco Systems and current CEO of JLabs LLC; Joe Rospars, who serves as Mr. Obama’s current New Media director and is the founder of an Internet consultancy firm based in Washington, D.C.; and Alec Ross, Mr. Obama’s official science advisor and executive vice president of the nonprofit One Economy Corporation, based in D.C. Former FCC chairmen William Kennard and Reed Hundt are in the mix, too. One thing they all have in common: They all talk about Mr. Obama with Craig Newmark.

—Gillian Reagan

Lawrence Summers – National Treasurer

Lawrence H. Summers already served as Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, but he may want another go. During a recent meeting of Mr. Clinton’s foundation in a Manhattan hotel, Mr. Summers could be seen on the phone talking Mr. Obama’s advisers through the proposed government bailout and offering his advice about what was and was not acceptable. He even offered to get on the phone with Mr. Obama himself, if that would help! Whether that conversation took place or not, the candidate is said to trust and value Mr. Summers’ advice. Since the 53-year-old resigned under a cloud from the deanship of Harvard over his comments on women in math and science professions, he’s stayed there as a professor also works at the D. E. Shaw Group, a global investment and technology development firm in New York.

—J.H.

Jann Wenner – Rallying Stone

The owner of Wenner Media and publisher of Rolling Stone put oh so much energy and time into Gore and Kerry. All those fund-raisers! But what did that amount to? Even if Mr. Wenner was hoping for Gore 08 as late as February 2007 when Rolling Stone ran a story, “Run, Al, Run,” it didn’t take long for him to recognize a winner, and jump on the Obama train. He donated his $5,400 earlier this year, and then Mr. Wenner gave Obama not one, not two, but three covers over the last seven months. The second cover, a text-free cover of Obama that was the test of a redesign of the whole magazine, worked so well that it’s the exact format that Rolling Stone uses now! Including the current issue—with Obama on the cover again. Meanwhile, in that first cover (cover line: “A New Hope”) back in March, he penned an endorsement that said: “And then along comes Barack Obama, with the kinds of gifts that appear in politics but once every few generations.” Let’s just say, after all that grabbing, it’s time for Jann to land a get!

—John Koblin

Rachel Klayman – The Audacity of Editing

“Maybe it makes me a petty person, but one thing I’ve especially enjoyed is saying ‘I told you so’ to all the people whom I told in 2004 and 2005 that they should really watch Barack Obama,” Rachel Klayman, an editor at Crown, told The Observer Monday. “… It’s something I’m really happy to have been proven right about.” It was through a series of unpredictable circumstances that Ms. Klayman ended up editing Barack Obama’s second book, The Audacity of Hope. It was way back in March of 2004, when Obama prevailed in the Democratic primary for the Illinois senate, that she read an article about him and got to wondering whether that modest seller, Dreams From my Father, was due for a revival. Ms. Klayman contacted Obama’s agent and pretty soon was editing the senator’s new preface, for a book that has defined the life-story, so far, of Barack Obama. He returned to Ms. Klayman without hesitation when the rights to his next book were offered to her, meaning the first book that comes out of an Obama White House is all hers.

—Leon Neyfakh

Ron Perelman – The Billionaire

Don’t listen to the carping about the McCain fund-raiser billionaire Ron Perelman threw at his East Hampton estate this summer, which was really just the posthumous fulfillment of an old friend’s promise to McCain. A source close to Mr. Perelman tells The Observer the historically staunch Clinton supporter has met with Senator Obama since he became the democratic candidate. After all, the money he made out of the Savings and Loan crisis is no chump change. What’s the 26th richest man in America’s number one issue? Health care, says the insider. If Mr. Obama’s ideas stretch to public-private partnership on the health care issue, Mr. Perelman has ways of making himself pretty useful, and getting a return on that usefulness.

—Spencer Morgan

Mort Zuckerman – The Prescient Mogul

Mort Zuckerman’s Daily News remains one of the nation’s larger pro-Obama newspapers (its endorsement called him “an extraordinary politician”), and the verbose, sometimes bawdy Mr. Zuckerman remains an oft-correct Cassandra about the nation’s economy. But in his dour warnings there’s prescience. He likely acted on such gut feelings of economic gloom last winter, when his firm, Boston Properties, led the $2.8 billion buy of the GM Building at 767 Fifth Avenue, the most ever paid for a tower in the U.S. and a deal struck just before the subprime mortgage crisis froze credit markets. Will his combination of high-profile punditry, fiscal acumen and access to print media make him too hard for Mr. Obama to ignore?

—Tom Acitelli

Shaun Donovan – The Housing Guru

Well before the prospect of an Obama administration became a reality, Shaun Donovan’s name was thrown around in governmental circles as a candidate for heading to Washington. The common thought: that as the well-regarded commissioner of the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development and a former HUD official, the position of Housing and Urban Development secretary might be on his radar. Indeed, Mr. Donovan is out on leave this week, off traveling to campaign and do policy work for Mr. Obama, according to people familiar with the commissioner’s plans. Especially with the bailout package, positions could be aplenty is Washington, perhaps in HUD, or perhaps on the finance side, if Mr. Donovan has any interest. At 42, his resume is already deep and varied, and if Mayor Bloomberg is out of the picture for his term-limit chicanery, what about the leading force behind Mayor Bloomberg’s ambitious 10-year affordable housing plan?

- Eliot Brown

André Leon Talley – Master of the Robes

In June of 2008, the influential Vogue editor-at-large André Leon Talley co-hosted a fund-raiser for Barack Obama with his boss, Anna Wintour. The candidate’s wife was wearing swishy black jersey palazzo pants and a long v-neck tunic. “No one knew what it was,” Mr. Talley said of the ensemble, which Ms. Obama had paired with a chunky, multi-colored Tom Binns necklace. “They were dinner trousers, very wonderful-looking for a cocktail party.”

It was Cuban-born New York designer Isabel Toledo who finally recognized the outfit, because she’d designed it (several seasons ago). “It was the possible first lady and she was wearing little ol’ me!” Ms. Toledo told The Observer, still astonished. “Without me petitioning for it!” Ms. Obama had bought her Toledo at Ikram, a Chicago boutique. But it was a knowing, unmistakable nod to a New York fashion industry that had, on that evening, turned out in glittering droves to claim her. And it wasn’t her first: On the last night of the Democratic National Convention, she’d worn a red dress by Vogue darling Thakoon Panichgul, also purchased at Ikram. Mr. Talley, who has served as style advisor to well-known African-American women ranging from Jennifer Hudson to Venus Williams, insisted that he had nothing to do with either choice. “We have never sat down at all to talk about her clothes, which tells me she is absolutely doing everything herself,” he said. “Vogue has not been consulted or contacted, we are not advising her in any capacity whatsoever. I’m speaking for myself and Anna Wintour; there is no radar where we are sending signals to her saying ‘Thakoon, Isabel Toledo,’ no way!” And yet Ms. Obama’s embrace of Vogue-sanctioned New York designers speaks to Mr. Talley’s and Ms. Wintour’s potential aesthetic influence in an Obama administration, presided over by first lady who appears to be both stylistically daring and self-taught (an Obama spokeswoman said she “is not aware” of Michelle having a stylist).

—Meredith Bryan

* Harry S. Truman: “If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog.”

P. Diddy recently announced that he plans to fly commercial in light of high gas prices and struggling economy, but others like investor Henry Kravis, Knicks player Stephon Marbury, NASCAR's Jeff Gordon, media mogul Bob Pittman and HDNet chairman Mark Cuban are suddenly rather shy about their personal planes.

One Manhattan mogul's publicist told the magazine, "With all that's been going on [in the economy], it would be rather insensitive to discuss details about [his] jet."

But that doesn't mean that the rich plan on giving up their private planes. Instead they will continue using them—perhaps more quietly—because commercial airlines are just a total headache these days.

"The airlines are an American disgrace,'' said Donald Trump.” When you are running a business, it is very hard to rely on what has become a disaster."

Mr. Trump's jumbo 727 plane, the largest of private planes, has a full-size bedroom, a marble bathroom, plush couches, and a movie screen on which he likes to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's. (Mr. Trump pointed out that the extra-large plane is often lent out to charities like Make-A-Wish Foundation to transport sick children who can't fly commercially.)

Meanwhile, billionaire Ron Perelman's Gulfstream G5 features current-release films, kosher food, a personal physician on-board, and an unlimited supply of fresh bagels and lox that are flown in from New York every morning regardless of where in the world Mr. Perelman is located at the moment. (Mr. Perelman’s plane has also been used to save a child's life when medicine was flown from Oregon to Chicago for a young boy who had contracted smallpox and couldn’t fly.)

Miami real estate developer Don Peebles insisted that his Gulfstream 2B, which has two separate cabins--one for him and his wife and one for his children--featuring a California king size beds, crystal dinnerware, and a Playstation 3, is a business necessity.

"The plane is a great business tool. It gives me freedom. There are days I've gone to three different cities for meetings—I could never do that commercially. There's a saying that money can't buy time, but in this case it can."

Ms. Zellweger was attending a private luncheon to celebrate Living Proof, a Lifetime original movie on which she was an executive producer about a doctor who works to find a cure for breast cancer.

The two women embraced, after which Ms. Herrera promptly departed before everyone sat down to eat. But Ms. Zellweger didn’t seem to mind as she had plenty more people to greet. After all, Ron Perelman had just walked in. ("Hey Peggs!" he shouted in the direction of publicist Peggy Siegal, who was lining the tables with name cards—Liz Smith, Bonnie Fuller, Trudie Styler—and shuffling guests around at the last minute.) And there was Ms. Zellweger’s dear friend, Christiane Amanpour.

"Renee and I are old friends," Ms. Amanpour told the Daily Transom. "She is very smart about current affairs—she wanted to be a journalist in her previous life—and so we catch up and talk about the election and what's happening overseas."

Speaking of the election, the Daily Transom was briefly distracted by a guest who had placed a baseball hat that read “Democrats for McCain” at the center of his eight-person table. Given that the room was full of New Yorkers who have likely attended quite a few Barack Obama fund-raisers in the last year, a lively discussion was taking place by the table. (“But she’s more qualified than Obama,” the gentleman was saying to a young woman.)

We wondered if despite Ms. Amanpour's busy schedule and frequent travels overseas, she was the type of gal to curl up on the couch with a blanket and a box of tissues for a Lifetime movie.

"No, it's not for me," she said. "But it's mostly because I grew up in Iran so I never watched it. I am really here for my friend Renee."

The Lifetime Network has gone through a transformation of sorts. The channel that used to be known for over-the-top original movies about abusive boyfriends or eating disorders--who can ever forget For the Love of Nancy?--recently convinced Harvey Weinstein to move Project Runway over from Bravo, and has attracted more recognizable faces like Mena Suvari, Marcia Gay Harden, and John Stamos for its films.

"It was really treated like a feature film, it really was," noted Harry Connick Jr., the lead in Living Proof, when the Daily Transom found him mingling with guests. "The level of people that were involved from a production point of view to the talent, it really felt like a feature."

And 22-year-old Amanda Bynes, also a star in the film, said that she has also noticed a difference with the network that she used to turn on for reruns of the Golden Girls.

"With Renee Zellwegger producing this, it's definitely a classy project and the network is just getting..." Here Ms. Bynes paused. "It's just getting cooler."

"What we're doing is elevating the talent," said Lifetime's senior VP of original movies Tanya Lopez. "Lifetime movies are like comfort food, but we're just saying 'step it up a bit!' It doesn't all have to be so earnest.

"We just got very comfortable before and the audiences didn't seem to mind, so we decided to shake the tree a bit and then everyone suddenly went, 'Oh!'" she continued. "In December we'll have Heather Locklear and Robert Buckley and that just says happy holidays!"

In an interview with an Israeli newspaper, Katie Couric compared herself to Hillary Clinton, claiming that sexism is more tolerated than racism. [NY Daily News]

Lauren Conrad, who just last week bailed on a Humane Society charity event, has reportedly continued her diva behavior in the Hamptons this past weekend. After flying in via chopper to host a party at Lily Pond, Ms. Conrad arrived late and was anti-social. [P6]

Maggie Gyllenhaal brought back the formal jumper for the London premiere of Dark Knight. [NY Daily News]

Betsey Johnson said she doesn't miss living downtown. [WWD via The Cut]

The View's Sherri Shepherd thinks Barbara Walters needs saving. [P6]

The custody battle between Ron Perelman and Patricia Duff continues to escalate as Mr. Perelman reportedly refuses to budge on sole custody and has refused to go into family therapy. [P6]